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Ahn Hee-jung, a former aide to President Roh Moo-hyun
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Ceong Wa Dae on Thursday admitted that President Roh Moo-hyun's confidant Ahn Hee-jung secretly met North Korean Councillor Lee Ho-nam in Beijing in October last year on the presidentĄ¯s instructions. Ahn's contact with North Korea ignored procedure and has attracted a welter of suspicions. The Grand National Party said it will seek a parliamentary grilling of the administration over the matter.
¨į Bypassing official channels
President Roh has repeatedly emphasized the need for transparency in dealings with North Korea after the 2000 cash-for-summit scandal came to light. In an attempt to promote its North Korea policy transparently, the government in 2005 legislated a law on development of the inter-Korean relations that specifies procedures for appointing delegates to inter-Korean talks and special envoys. Ahn holds no official government post but met the North Korean official in Beijing at presidential orders, according to Lee Ho-chul, presidential secretary for information and policy monitoring. The Unification Ministry and the National Intelligence Service, the official windows for dealing with North Korea, were kept out of the loop.
¨č A tip-off
The contact was arranged through Kwon O-hong, a former Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency official and businessman dealing with North Korea. A reporter of a weekly, an acquaintance of Kwon, told the presidential office in the wake of the North's Oct. 9 nuclear test that the North was willing to return to six-party talks and wants to see a special envoy from the South. Roh was briefed on this and asked Ahn to find out the truth.
¨é Ignoring procedure
The fact that Ahn met the North Korean official without clearance with the Unification Ministry is a clear breach of the South-North Exchange and Cooperation Law. The law requires advance notification in general, or at least a briefing within seven days after a contact in unavoidable circumstances. By directing Ahn to visit Beijing, Cheong Wa Dae effectively abetted the illegality. In addition, Kwon O-hong was reported to the prosecution over a 2001 visit to the North without government permission and consequently had his license to do inter-Korean business cancelled. A suggestion from a man found to have violated positive law should have been thoroughly vetted, experts said.
¨ę The U$500,000 demand
When Ahn in the Oct. 20 Beijing meeting proposed sending former prime minister Lee Hae-chan to Pyongyang as a special envoy, the North Koreans demanded $500,000 in advance, according to Kwon, who claims he recorded the meeting. The demand was allegedly settled by offering the North to set up a 10,000-head pig farm when Uri Party lawmaker Lee Hwa-young visited Beijing and met North Korean officials on Nov. 26. Lee maintains he came up with the pig farm independently. But the link is sufficient to raise suspicion that something may have been offered to the North prior to Lee's Pyongyang visit in March.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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